Sindh PMA opposes federal govt's views on control of Covid-19, seeks strict lockdown.

HYDERABAD -- The Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) Sindh chapter has rejected the narrative of 'saving economy' of the federal government at the cost of patients' lives and demanded enforcement of a stricter lockdown for flattening the curve of the coronavirus cases in the country.

Addressing a press conference held at Hyderabad PMA office on Sunday, the association's leader Dr Mirza Ali Azhar said: 'We don't accept this narrative of saving economy. We need to save lives of patients and people considering the fact that the number of the coronavirus cases in the country is increasing at a fast pace. We have lost over 2,500 people while affected people will be around 150,000 shortly given the pace of virus transmission.'

'It is important to save people's lives as the state is bound to provide quality healthcare services and education to its people. Otherwise, the situation is deemed as failure of the state,' said Dr Azhar. Other PMA leaders Dr Rafiq Khokhar, Dr Agha Taj, Dr Zaman Baloch, Dr Usman Mako, Dr Vasdev and Dr Bashir Khaskheli were also present.

'The PMA will prefer saving lives to saving the economy,' he said, demanding that a stricter lockdown should be enforced in letter and spirit to stem the spread of the virus. He said hospitals were under severe stress due to the increasing number of patients.

He said there was talk about saving daily-wage earners' bread and butter. When an ineffective lockdown was enforced, the media perhaps had not reported any death from hunger, he said, adding: 'We are a nation who will not let anyone die from hunger. One can survive for a day or two without food, but those affected by the virus seriously have lesser chances of survival,' he said.

He said there was talk of reinforcing lockdown in some countries while in Pakistan everything was being reversed.

Dr Azhar said primary job of doctors was to attend patients while rest of the facilities were to be ensured by the government. There was a hue and cry from everywhere that doctors were not getting personal protective equipment (PPE) in the present conditions, he added.

He said that on one hand doctors were putting their lives at risk while on the other they had to face aggressive attendants of the patients for no fault of theirs.

He said it was...